Technical Field
Embodiments described herein are related to the field of integrated circuit implementation, and more particularly to the implementation of memory systems.
Description of the Related Art
In a computing system, multiple memory access requests may be queued for processing as the requests are issued. A memory controller may retrieve memory access requests from the queue to process as the memory resources are available. Some of these memory access requests may be processed upon reception if memory resources required to fulfill the memory access request are currently available. A portion of the memory access requests, however, may utilize a resource of the memory system that is currently busy fulfilling a previous processed requests. Requests utilizing unavailable resources may be identified and the memory controller may monitor the unavailable resource(s), and fulfill the corresponding request once the resource(s) is available. This process of identifying a memory request and monitoring the unavailable resource is commonly referred to as a “resource retry.”
If multiple requests require unavailable resources, then a number of memory requests added to a resource retry queue may grow. As a result, a response time for completing the memory requests may cause noticeable delays or performance lags in the computing system. In addition, a high priority memory request may become stalled behind lower priority memory requests, potentially leading to a stall of a high priority process, such as, for example, processing of an exception, a trap, or an interrupt.